New XP install cannot see a second hard disk

  • Thread starter Thread starter Laogui32
  • Start date Start date
L

Laogui32

I have three identical Western digital 80gb drives.
All are configured as 1 or 2 NTFS partitions.
One I will call DATA, another XP-OLD, and the 3rd XP-NEW

I used to run XP-OLD and DATA as Primary and Secondary Masters
Then XP-OLD (XP 2002, SP2) started to exhibit increasingly bizarre operating
behaviour, not attributable to virus, but also not fixable
So I built a new XP on XP-NEW. All drives are in removable caddies so I can
swap them quickly.
BIOS settings are fine, Master/Slave jumpers are correct.

XP-OLD and DATA work together fine
XP-NEW and DATA - cannot see DATA, DiskManager cannot see DATA, Control
Panel Drivers sees two hard-disks
XP-NEW and XP-OLD work fine together in any combination.

How can I make XP-NEW see DATA? What are the possible causes?

Thank you for reading and thinking about my problem
 
Hi there Laogui32,

You might want to check in the Disk Management console (Right click on My
Computer, left click on Manage, select Disk Management) and see what drive
letter is assigned to the DATA hard drive. Make sure that it's not trying to
use a letter that's already in use. I'd try T just for grins.

Let us know how it goes!

Best Regards,

~Will
 
As I said, Disk Manager cannot see it at all, there is no second drive! It
shows DISK1, no DISK 2!
But just in case, I may go back and try changing drive letters using XP-OLD
then swap back to XP-NEW and see what is happening.
Does XP record drive letters on the drive, or in registry?
It sounds like straw clutching, but I'm willing at this point.
 
Maybe Solved...
I've rejigged everything, and now in DiskManager I can see a Disk1, which
shows up as 'Foreign Disk' with no partitions
So I right clicked and tried 'Import Foreign Disk' and voila!
 
Solution: finally showed up as 'Foreign Disk' I Imported the disk and all is
well now

The disk was a dual boot system disk, WIN98, WINXP, WIN2000...
 
Back
Top